Support the Day of White Armbands in the US and Canada

May 29, 2019

In the name of American and Canadian Bosniaks in which many come from Prijedor, the Institute for Research of Genocide Canada (IGC) and the Congress of North American Bosniak (CNAB) seeks your support for the “Day of White Armbands in USA and Canada”.

The campaign “Day of White Armbands”, whose aim is to fight for the rights and remembrance of Bosniaks and Croats from Prijedor, occurs worldwide on May 31st each year. This campaign symbolizes the beginning of genocide perpetrated by the Bosnian Serbs and their supporters against Bosniaks and Croats in Prijedor. In memory of innocent victims, IGC and CNAB once again draw the attention of the American and Canadian public to the ongoing denial of war crimes by local government in Prijedor.

On May 31st 1992, the Bosnian Serb authorities in Prijedor, a town in north-western Bosnia and Herzegovina, issued a decree for all non-Serbs to mark their houses with white flags or sheets and to wear a white armband if they were to leave their houses. This was the beginning of extermination that resulted in executions, concentration camps, mass rapes and the ultimate removal of more than 94% of Bosniaks and Croats from the Prijedor municipality.

This was the first time since the 1939 Nazi decree that members of an ethnic or religious group were marked and prepared for extermination. Between 1992 and 1995, 102 children and 256 women were killed, a total of 3173 civilians perished, 31,000 people were detained in death camps, 53,000 people were victims of persecution and deportation. In just three months 94 percent of the Bosniak population from Prijedor was eliminated.

IGC and CNAB would like to inform the American and Canadian public on the current police ban on commemorative gatherings for victims.

Victims of the genocidal campaign carried out in Prijedor have not received any acknowledgement of their suffering from the municipal authorities to this day. Prijedor’s local government refuse to publicly acknowledge any of the crimes committed in the municipality, despite presence of numerous judgments by international and domestic courts.

IGC and CNAB invite you to stand in solidarity with the victims of Prijedor. We hope you can join us in commemorating “White Armband day” this May 31st. Let us stand up for justice together and remind the world that good will overcome evil and innocent victims will never be forgotten.